


Not Unsaid

by wyrmy



Series: Our Hopes of Endless Light [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Autistic Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a little boggled by that at first, Canon Compliant, Crowley's Love Language is Acts of Service (Good Omens), Episode: s01e02 The Book, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Kind-of, M/M, Wound Tending, dubiously verifiable assertions about agricultural practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrmy/pseuds/wyrmy
Summary: It was an accident, the first time. Aziraphale never actually meant to ask Crowley for anything.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Our Hopes of Endless Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980841
Comments: 8
Kudos: 89





	Not Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> T-rating is for a brief and non-graphic depiction of an infected wound.

It was an accident, the first time that it happened.

Within, Aziraphale reckoned, the first fifty-odd years of humanity’s existence. 

He’d been standing on a hill, looking out over the little patchwork fields that marked humanity’s first experimentation with agriculture, and thinking to himself how pretty they had been, one year ago, from this same vantage point. He’d spent all morning with the humans, trying to gather in the harvest before it rotted in the damp field. The humans had declared a break for lunch, and Aziraphale had slunk off on his own. The weather was so bad this year that the humans had precious little food, which they always insisted on sharing with Aziraphale. He was so hungry he wasn’t sure of his ability to refuse.

So he stood on the hill.

There was a noise, almost undetectably quiet, behind him, and he turned to see an enormous snake coiled up on a rock.

“Hi,” said the snake.

“Oh hello, Crawly,” Aziraphale replied as cheerily as he could muster. 

“Nice day for it, with all the storm clouds and that,” said Crawly.

“Hmm?” said Aziraphale.

“I said it’s a nice day to be admiring the view from up here. It’s all very,” he waved his tail in a circular motion, “picturesque.”

“Oh, I suppose so. Sorry. I’m a bit preoccupied today.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” 

There was something odd in Crawly’s tone, but Aziraphale wasn’t much good at parsing that sort of thing, so he ignored it.

“Yes, I am. Well it’s the humans, you see.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I… worry, sometimes.”

“Understandable. They’re very fragile things, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale with feeling.

“If I’m being honest, it’s all a bit… sad really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well there’s us, right? There’s you and me and our respective sides, all these millions of preternatural beings just sort of… lurking around, watching the poor buggers, arguing over how many of them each side gets, while they’re just down there in the valley, getting bit by insects and feeling hungry, and, and dying. You know? They’re actually having lives down there and for the rest of us it’s just a game. Not even a particularly fun game.”

“I’m not- I don’t think my side would approve of that sort of thinking. No indeed. We angels have got to try and win their souls so that they get to go to heaven when they die.” He nodded to himself. “And then they’ll be alright, you see.”

“Do you like being in heaven?” asked the demon.

“Yes,” lied the angel. “Of course. What a question.”

“If you say so,” shrugged Crawly.

It was quiet on the hill for a little while. The wind was cold and damp. Aziraphale sighed.

“But I do wish I was allowed to help them, a little,” he said. “My miracles get audited, you see, and heaven would be able to tell if I interfered.”

“What would you do, if you could? Make sure they said their prayers every night? Put charity and mercy in their minds?”

“I would change this awful weather. I hate the thought of them starving. They’re so kind to me, I wish there was a way for me to return their kindness.”

Hardly were those words out when the lowering clouds seemed to dissipate and the sun shone brilliantly through the valley.

Aziraphale turned to the demon behind him in shock.

“Did you do that?” he said. “Whatever for?”

But Crawly the serpent was gone. 

The weather was lovely all week, well long enough for the humans to gather in their harvest.

*

The next time it happened was probably about thirty or forty years after. It was also an accident. Probably. 

Aziraphale had cut his hand on something, and had put in a formal request to perform the necessary miracle on his corporation. The request had been denied on grounds of triviality.

Some lovely humans had bandaged it and treated it with some herbs that they said had healing properties, and Aziraphale had been grateful for the help, but a week later his hand hurt worse than ever. 

Not that he was allowed time off in case of injury.

He was having some worrying symptoms too. He felt very cold, for instance, despite how warm it was out. He had a miracle to do in the next town over and while normally he would consider the journey a pleasant and easy one, today he felt very tired and kept needing to take breaks. 

He had just sat down on a very comfortable rock for an un-earned but extremely needed rest, when suddenly a red-haired man was towering over him. Or so it seemed.

“Um, hello?” he ventured, blinking upwards with some confusion. It was hard to see, for some reason. 

“Blimey, angel, you look like absolute shit,” said the man, whose voice Aziraphale was able to recognize.

“Crawly! And what are you doing here, you fiend?”

“Pointing out how shitty you look, at the moment.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale was all out of clever things to say.

‘What’s the matter with you, anyway? I’ve never seen you look so disheveled. Or so sweaty.”

“I think I might be ill. I haven’t been quite up to snuff, these last few days.”

“You’ve got- on your-” Crawly wasn’t looking at his face. Crawly’s lip was curling.

“Hmm?”

“Just give me your hand. No, the other one.” 

As Aziraphale raised his hand to show Crawly, he saw that something had soaked through the bandage. It didn’t look like blood, exactly. 

Oh dear, thought Aziraphale. 

Crawly unwound the bandage. Whatever was underneath made him retch. 

“Satan’s sake, what happened?”

“Oh I cut it on a rock. I fell into a ravine. Silly of me.”

“No I mean what happened to prevent you from healing it?”

“Well they denied my application. I’m not able to.”

“Denied your-? Not able to?”

“That’s how it works, you know. Gabriel’s always saying, we’re not a- OH!”

There was a sudden flash of light and Aziraphale was instantly healed, not just his hand, but everything else too.

He turned his disbelieving face towards the suddenly-clearer Crawly and couldn’t stop the grateful smile that spread over his face. 

“How- how very kind! Oh thank you! Such a lovely gesture. And I feel so much better now. It really is marvelous, what you’ve… done for me.”

“Not really. It was nothing. Don’t thank me.” Crawly was glowering. But there was something almost brittle in his voice which undermined his words. 

Aziraphale was not always the best at parsing the tone of people’s voices, but he could tell when he was being lied to.

*

He couldn’t help it around Crowley after a while. They became better and better friends over the next five thousand years and more and Aziraphale felt almost a compulsive need to ask for things he otherwise couldn’t have. Good deeds that he wasn’t allowed to perform, odd bits of healing magic, eventually little personal favors, anything that his heart hardly dared hope for. 

He tested the limits, hinting at favors that were more and more trivial, hinting more extravagantly, not just by saying what he wanted, but by making eyes at Crowley too, indicating as best he could how much he wanted this or that. But no matter what suggestion he made, Crowley never refused. 

It was very odd. 

No angel would ever indulge such silliness. Big pitiful eyes could not move their hearts, either to perform a miracle to help others, or to pay a bar tab.

Crowley was the most fascinating person Aziraphale had ever met.

A large part of him daily expected Crowley to get tired of whatever strange, unspoken dynamic they had. To say, “Tell me outright what you want, or shut up!”

Asking for things outright was terrifying. Asking for something meant you could be refused. If Crowley simply failed to take the hint, which he did sometimes, there was no real harm done. Aziraphale’s dignity was intact. He had not admitted to any weakness.

*

Aziraphale had to stop momentarily to regain his breath. 

“It feels… loved,” he gasped, reaching out to stop Crowley, touching his arm, feeling the love of the environment and the love he felt for his friend rippling around him in a way that was almost overwhelming.

“No this is definitely the place,” said sweet Crowley, in a vague sort of voice. “What do you mean “loved”?”

“I mean the opposite of when you say “I don’t like this place, it feels spooky”.”

“I don’t ever say that. Big spooky fan, me. Let’s go talk to some nuns.”

And then they were shot.

When the initial shock had worn off and Aziraphale knew for certain that he had not been mortally wounded, his next reaction was by now instinctual. 

He turned to Crowley, cast him the most piteous look he was capable of, and hoped.

And Crowley, although he growled and frowned, gently blew on the paint to vanish it away. Aziraphale wasn’t certain whether or not he imagined that breath ruffling the hair on the back of his neck, but he shivered all the same. He looked up at Crowley with the smile that was only for him, only for gratitude. 

A declaration of love made, followed by the act.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
> my job has unexpectedly kicked into high gear since last I posted so I really don't know what posting will be like. I'm working on lots of wips but am quite short on spoons these days so we'll see. i have so much still to write for this fandom lol.


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